Beth Huffman | Holiday Gifting for Law Firms: Avoiding Pitfalls and Making It Personal

Elise Holtzman: Hi, everyone. It's Elise Holtzman here, a former practicing lawyer and the host of the Lawyer's Edge podcast. Welcome back for another episode. So we're going to talk about something a little different today, something I don't usually talk about, and that's holiday gift giving. We all know that holiday gift giving can be a fun way for law firms to show appreciation and how much they care about their clients, but it's also full of pitfalls from ethics rules and corporate policies to client preferences and logistics.

In this episode, we're going to take a little bit of a lighthearted look, but a practical look at how firms can get gratitude right. You'll hear tips on holiday cards, thoughtful gifts, and the best way to avoid awkward missteps while making a lasting impression on your clients. Before we dive in, today's episode is brought to you by the Ignite Women's Business Development Accelerator, a nine-month business development program created by women lawyers for women lawyers. Ignite is a carefully designed business development program containing content, coaching, and a community of like-minded women who are committed to becoming rainmakers and supporting the retention and advancement of other women in the profession. To learn more about Ignite, visit thelawyersedge.com/ignite.

I am delighted to welcome my guest today, Beth Huffman, who is the VP of Poston Communications. Beth has more than 40 years of experience in communications, media, and marketing. Following two decades as a reporter, Beth spent the next two decades helping major law firms like Deckard and Nelson Mullins, legal organizations, and their global clients create strategic narratives that elevated their reputations and their work. After more than a decade at Deckard and seven years plus at Nelson Mullins, Beth returned to Pennsylvania and joined Poston Communications as vice president.

I recently noticed on the Legal Marketing Association website and listserv that I participate in that Beth was talking to other people, law firm marketing professionals, about how to do a really good job of showing client appreciation during the holiday season, and learned that she's even written an article about it, which was recently published. So I reached out to Beth to ask her if I could pick her brain, and she was kind enough to say yes. Beth, welcome to The Lawyer's Edge.

Beth Huffman: Thanks for having me, Elise.

Elise Holtzman: I am excited to talk about this topic. You know, most of the time I'm talking to people about things like business development and leadership and things that sometimes I think feel heavy to people. It's exciting and it's interesting, but it also can feel heavy.

So today, let's have a little bit of fun talking about holiday gifts, because we know that law firms want to show appreciation to their clients. They want to stay top of mind with clients and friends of the firm. But I do think it's hard for people to always know what to do. So what are some of the biggest challenges and mistakes you see that law firms run into when they do want to show appreciation to their clients and send some kind of card or gift?

Beth Huffman: Let's start with cards because, believe it or not, cards are a huge headache. If you haven't started your card selection now, it might be too late. I used to do mine in June. You have to have a selection of cards. You have to be mindful that you need non-denominational cards, that you need possibly New Year's cards, that you might want to think about having all that snow raining down on a beautiful forest when half your partnership or clients are in Florida or California. So cards take a lot of thought, a lot of time. Gone are the days really where I think, and I go back this far, where different teams or groups had card signing parties in conference rooms to get all their cards ready for their clients.

Nowadays, I'm happy to say a lot of people have pivoted to digital. Not everybody. Obviously, the digital cards can be fun. They can be animated. You can have different selections. You can have New Year selections. People can choose to send some to some clients and some to others. But cards take a lot of work. They need to be done in advance.

Then, of course, imagine if you have 33 offices and 500 lawyers get cards and making sure they get the right ones, and lawyers forgot to purchas,e and you have to get them in advance. Are they branded correctly? So working on holiday cards is really something that starts in early June or July. It has to be done, and it has to be done early.

Gift giving, you're okay if you start about now, but you have to be very thoughtful about it. The biggest problem people make is thinking one size fits all, because it doesn't. It doesn't for many, many reasons. So I always say to my lawyers, and I've had people say, "I just buy everybody a hundred-dollar bottle of wine." Well, great. It tastes the same to me. I would not be appreciative of it. There are plenty of people out there who don't drink wine, don't drink. So you can't send a bottle of wine to everybody. You just can't. You might not know who's sober. You might not know whose family doesn't have liquor in the house. So you have to be really careful about certain things.

So the number one thing you need to start when you're doing gift giving is know your clients. I love using the CRM. I love making a list of what clients like, what we've sent them in the past, so we don't send them the same thing next year. So organization is a big key.

Elise Holtzman: I used to send paper cards, and I would get really excited about it and try to find something a little bit different and a little bit interesting. Then the pandemic hit. All of a sudden, I realized I didn't know where anybody was. Some were going to the office, but some weren't. I didn't have home addresses. It felt a little weird to send something to people's home addresses.

So, how have you seen people respond to the hybrid and remote work issue when it comes to cards?

Beth Huffman: It's a real issue because a lot of people are hybrid, they're remote. A lot of people moved out of some of the big cities during the pandemic. I just talked to somebody today who's working for a firm, has no office in Colorado, but he's in Colorado. So you don't know. Generally, about this time, I tell everybody it's okay to reach out and say, "We have a gift, or I want to send you something." Most of the time you might know if people are hybrid or not because you're having meetings, you're going into the client's office, or you're seeing on their background what's on their background. So you should have some idea of what they are, what they're working out of.

But for gifts, I always think it's a good idea to touch point and say, "Hey, I'm sending a gift. The other option is there are quite a few companies out there, and I used some in the past, where you can go on to their site. It's a dedicated site where you can pick your dollar value. You can go pick a gift. You can put it in your cart. You can then put the email in the cart. The email goes to the client and says, "John Smith is sending you a gift."

Now, of course, I advise everybody to let the client know that's coming so they don't think it's spam, and "Please let us know where you'd like this gift." Sometimes it's a gift certificate, things like that. But it's all through a service, so it's a little less invasive, too.

But the other thing is when you're sending directly and have your firm people doing it, or you're ordering massive quantities, and they ask for a spreadsheet, and you're going to send it through the spreadsheet, you do have to ask.

Elise Holtzman: Well, in the making mistakes department, because I've definitely done some of those, I did try to send some gifts over the border into Canada, which didn't sound like it was going to be very complicated. After all, it's Canada. My gifts got stuck in customs and didn't make it there in time. Now, fortunately, the people to whom I was sending the gifts are absolutely lovely. I let them know that their gifts were stuck in customs, and they had a good sense of humor about it. But obviously, I was embarrassed, and that's not something you ever want to have happen.

Also, you mentioned this idea of reaching out and saying, "Hey, I'm sending you a gift." I do get emails like that, and it's very nice. It's something like, "Oh, it could be an assistant sending it," or you sending it, "Beth would like to send you a little something. Would you please let us know which is the best address for you, because we want to make sure that your gift has gotten there?" So I think those sorts of practical tips are really important for people because it's often in the logistics that we get tripped up, and you don't want to be spending all this money and care on gifts and have it go bad.

Beth Huffman: I'm glad you said that because there are some regulations if you do want to send wine or you do want to send liquor or you want to send a bottle of champagne. There are some states you cannot send that to. So it's a really good idea to investigate all those things and just don't assume that it's going to get there. I've mailed some things to Europe and I've mailed them in mid-November to make sure that they got to somebody in Europe.

Elise Holtzman: Yeah, I think that's really important too, is thinking ahead because I usually get to November and suddenly have a panic attack, in the interest of full disclosure, that I haven't done it early enough. So it's a good reminder to me and to everybody listening to get involved in this stuff first so that you don't feel like you have to do things very quickly and you're not doing it in an intentional, thoughtful way.

One of the things you mentioned, I also want to point out, is this idea of not sending liquor or certain things. Sometimes, if you are sending any kind of alcohol, you have to have a signature. So if you're sending it to somebody's house and their 16-year-old answers the door, guess what? They're not getting it. One of the things that I ultimately decided to do successfully, because I do have quite a few clients in Ontario and I'm in the U.S., is that I actually found a company.

I specifically went and found a company in Canada that is a gift-sending company. I was able to pick something terrific. I knew that they had all of the authorizations and they knew how to get it done in Canada. So I sent my U.S. people from one company and my Canadians from another company.

Beth Huffman: Very smart.

Elise Holtzman: Yeah, they know what they're doing, too. Because if you are sending a gift to a state where you're not allowed to ship alcohol, they will have that right on their website. It will say something like, "We are not permitted to ship alcohol to X, Y, Z state, the regulations, the laws don't permit it." At least then you know what you're getting into.

So rather than you sitting in your office and trying to pack a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon or something like that, it's a good idea sometimes to use these companies.

Beth Huffman: Let's be real. Depending on the size of the firm, you're going to find in smaller firms, it goes to the admins, and they're charged with it along with everything else they do. They've got to worry about getting your holiday gifts out, getting it out on time. So that's onerous on them.

You go to the medium and large firms that have dedicated marketing staff, bigger staff, people who work on gift giving. They still have a million things that they're working on, whether it's year-end parties, the conferences, everything they're doing. Some of them are able to use big vendors, and others aren't. It is a time-consuming practice.

Elise Holtzman: It is. To your point, some people have the ability, they have a whole team doing this, and some people really have nobody doing it. Either you're doing it yourself as an attorney at a small firm, or you're asking somebody who, this isn't their normal role, you're asking them to jump in and do this. They have a million other things on their plate, and they may not know any of this stuff. They're just a hardworking person who wants to be helpful.

So I have a question about the digital cards. You talked about this idea of using digital cards. I think you said fortunately, we have this option for digital cards. I'm a little bit old school, I guess. I've always been concerned that the digital cards can get lost in the shuffle because lawyers get so many emails, and everybody gets so many emails these days. What do you think about digital cards? If you do like them, how can you make yourself stand out in a positive way when it comes to digital?

Beth Huffman: I personally like paper cards, and I send a lot. I also come from a really large family, but I send a lot of paper cards. On the digital, first off, it's really a good use when you do have clients in different countries because you know it's going to get delivered. I also think some of this is generational. I think that younger people are more than willing or used to it and have no problem. Maybe older generation, perhaps not.

I can say that the digital cards can be so much fun. They're animated. They have songs. You can personalize them. If you take the time and give them a spreadsheet or put in the name, it can say, "Hey, Elise, Beth wishes you a happy holidays." And you can have all your pretty stuff coming down. I think it's a personal taste issue. It really is.

Elise Holtzman: Yeah. I think you're right about the generations. I mean you may have noticed, as I certainly have, as my kids get to an age and my friends get to ages where their kids are getting married. I'm getting invitations now where the invitations, I haven't so far gotten invitations online for weddings, although I know some people use them, especially when they have smaller budgets.

But certainly you're being given literal URLs on the invitation for RSVPing and for purchasing gifts, and for getting more information about the wedding. So yeah, that's something to keep in mind.

Beth Huffman: Absolutely a standard practice now.

Elise Holtzman: A hundred percent.

Beth Huffman: The reply cards, it's all online. Absolutely.

Elise Holtzman: Right. So do you have an older cohort? Do you want to maybe do some things for some people and other things for other people? Again, that takes time and energy to map out.

Beth Huffman: That goes back to one size does not fit all.

Elise Holtzman: Yeah. Well, so that's a good point. So do you have some things that you've seen lawyers do particularly well? Any fun ideas or creative ideas, or things that they've done that you think might be fun for people to hear about?

Beth Huffman: So I have spent most of my career at large firms where it was up to the marketing department, except for lawyers who traditionally sent the wine or had their usuals. It was up to the marketing department to come up with our ideas. The last several years, I have offered options to our lawyers. Here's an option where you can go in, put your dollar value, add it, have it sent to them, no problem. Here is the traditional, I'm going to send the wine. Here's our wine.

So if you have like four, here's one where one year we encouraged people to send Thanksgiving pies, and we got quite a few takers there. Then we opted on it. Another vendor, we could pick different things. But for instance, one of the firms I worked with was in the South and I'm a great lover of pralines and turtles and those good things, and we picked a company. You could send baskets and different things and all kinds of fun candies and stuff and pick your size, and so we gave them an option of what to do.

I know that we've had attorneys in the past buy a barrel of bourbon and get personalized bottles. But again, how many of your people are going to? I look at a bottle of bourbon, saying, "That's great, honey, do you want it?" I have some other alternatives. In particular, there are some companies who frown on dollar gifts of a certain level. There are some people who want to make it about, and I love this idea, about their team. You don't just work with me. There are five, 10, 25 people on our in-house team.

In that case, what I really like is offering to do something for the team. We can come in, a lot of states at the end of the year require CLE requirements. We'll come in, we will pay for a holiday lunch, we'll give a nominal gift, chocolates, a squid for your phone. We'll do the CLE, and we'll get to see everybody and have a little holiday gift. I love that model. I really do. Because it makes all the people that you work with as opposed to we just sent a gift to the GC, and everybody else was left out. Sometimes those are the people you work with the most.

So I like that idea. One of the other ideas I really like is if you can do something like, let's say it's a smaller firm, and you know how much our attorneys and our in-house people spend away from their families. Quite often, it's nice if you know they have a family, "All right, I'm going to send you a Fandango card because guess what? You watch Fandango from home now. I was blessed to be able to watch Thunderbolts that way. You can send them the popcorn gift card and do a nice little family gift. Or they might be great pet lovers and there are lots of fun gifts out there for pets. So if you know your clients, those are some fun things to do.

Elise Holtzman: I know you've said that the most memorable gifts are the ones that feel personal. I'm curious about how you can do a good job of picking gifts that are personal without being weird about it or getting yourself in trouble. What's the best way to choose gifts when we're in a professional world, and yet at the same time, we want to recognize the humanity of this person and that we care about them and we know them pretty well?

Beth Huffman: Well, one thing is, of course, people love to send golf clothes, golf shirts, great pullovers, but then you have to ask people your size. Then it gets awkward if it still doesn't fit. So sometimes I find that to be a bit problematic. Some people have dedicated systems where people can go in and pick their own size. I guess that can be nice.

I know that nowadays I recommend to people anything techie is safe. We're all walking around with cell phones and can't find our chargers. We're all walking around with our backpacks or our briefcases full of cords and there are wonderful organizers out there. Those are some things to be safe. But there is a pitfall I want to warn people about. Many law firms will have clients who are manufacturers or have things in the space that might be given away.

You do not want to send Lands’ End to their competitor or everybody walks around with a tumbler and there are multiple manufacturers, and you don't want to send one to somebody when in fact that's a conflict. So that's another part of knowing your client. It can get really awkward if you send a client something like that.

With CRMs and Outlook nowadays, if you have a lunch with somebody and you notice, hey, they're allergic to shellfish or they don't drink coffee, make sure you come back and put those in your notes. You don't know how valuable that ends up being.

Elise Holtzman: Well, it sounds like what you're saying is that there, and you've said this already, that there is no one-size-fits-all approach, that this is an important thing to do. I think a lot of people give this idea of holiday cards and holiday gifts very little attention, and understandably so. We know that they're busy and particularly if they don't have a whole marketing department that can do it for them.

But I really do want to take a tip from you and just remind people how impactful and important this can be for them, and to devote the time and the strategy and the energy that it takes to do a good job with this. You also mentioned, Beth, one of your clients sending out Thanksgiving pies. So that's interesting to me because that's not Christmas and it's not New Year's. So what do you think about—

Beth Huffman: And I've seen New Year's champagne for sure, but I thought Thanksgiving pies was very unique.

Elise Holtzman: Yeah, it is unique. So what do you think about sending gifts at other times of the year, like at the end of a deal closing or somebody's anniversary, instead of just during the holidays?

Beth Huffman: Many law firms have a standard gift, a standard dinner after deal closings. They have these deal trophies. If you've been in an M&A partner's office, you see the deal trophies all over their credenzas and their bookcases. So it is a great idea, but it also can be a great client development idea.

Send them a gift maybe that's commemorative of the event, and say, "It was wonderful working with you. Can't wait for our next opportunity. Call me when that's lined up." I mean, it's a touch point, right? It's all about the touch point. Another reason to go and talk to the clients.

In particular, let's just say again you know your client and it's the start of beach season and they're in Florida or they're at the Jersey Shore, and you put together a great beach package and say, "Hope to be talking to you even from the beach." All of those things, it really comes down to your personality too. Let's be real.

The most important thing about this is not the cost, though everybody should check out what their budget is because they're not always reimbursed, but it's the sincerity. It's you. If it's not you, it makes it a little bit harder. It has to be really genuine.

You have to understand your relationship with your client. You might have a client who doesn't want anything, doesn't want to hear from you. You need to know that. You also need to know there's a lot of competition out there, and somebody might have done a really little deal, but they sent a gift. Are you sending a gift?

Elise Holtzman: You mentioned expense. I know you're going to say it depends, so I'll tee that up right up front. But I'm curious, and I know you came out of Biglaw, but that you now work with a lot of smaller firms as well. How do you know what the right amount of money to spend is?

I've gotten stuck where I'm like, "Well, is this enough?" I mean, I do this, listen, I do the same thing with wedding gifts and baby gifts and all of that. So I think we all struggle with that because we don't know what a "going rate" is.

So you don't want to be weird and overdo it, but you also don't want to be seen as not caring enough about the person to spend a reasonable amount of money. So do you have any guidance around that situation?

Beth Huffman: Well, first off, a lot of companies have limits on what they can get. But perhaps, again, you should know that. You should reach out and ask. God knows you don't want the gift sent back saying, "I can't accept this," correct? So that's the first thing.

Then I think that brings us to always saying, know your client. Somebody might cherish two tickets to the Yankees game, which could get really pricey above that $100 bottle of wine. Some people might cherish, as I said before, just having something to go home and say to their kids, "Hey, this is for you and I'm going to spend tonight watching the movie with you."

So the other thing is, of course, depending on the level, there has to be some real conversations at firms about what the budget is. Most firms do, or a lot of times it just comes out of either the client development fund or the partner's pocket. It depends on the firm, correct?

So I think it's going to depend on if you have a budget, how many can I realistically do? If I want to do them right, do I need to pare the list down? Because asking for more money is nice, but it doesn't work most of the time.

Elise Holtzman: You also mentioned CRMs or other tools to track things. I think this is really important because when I first started my business, I realized that maybe the first year, I was all excited, and I didn't have that many clients in the beginning. So I sent out some gifts.

Then the following year, I had no idea who I had sent gifts. I'm very organized. I'm actually nerdily organized, but I just hadn't thought of it. So now I do keep, it's not technologically savvy, but I do keep a spreadsheet so that I can keep track of what I've sent to people before.

For some people, they're happy to get the same thing every year. For other people, you might want to be shifting it up a bit. And as you say, you have to know your clients because somebody might say, I might think, oh, I want to send a new gift to this person this year.

Last year was cool, but I want to do something really cool this year. Then they get the gift and they're like, "Oh, bummer, she sent me that thing last year and I really liked that idea." So I'm trying to keep track. So what are the things that we should be keeping track of?

Beth Huffman: I just want to say that's so funny because I had a vendor when I was in-house, and every year he brought to my team chocolate-covered peanuts. I want you to know those didn't last long in my drawer, but I loved them. When he came in the next year, I'm like, "Oh, I'm like getting my chocolate-covered peanuts." So you're correct. For some people, they love that.

Also, for some firms, like for him, it was my identity of he's going to bring me chocolate-covered peanuts. That's why I like some of the ability on the regional sense to be like, "Hey, I'm a Philly firm and I'm sending everybody Tastykake." If you don't know what a Tastykake is, look it up. Or I'm going to send everybody, you can ship out soft pretzels. Or I'm from the South, and I'm going to send pralines. I'm from Nashville and Goo Goo Clusters. I got barbecue sauce. I got Nashville barbecue sauce. I never forgot that.

I know a firm that did that in North Carolina because, you know, North Carolina barbecue sauce is different from South Carolina and Texas. So I like those ideas. But in terms of keeping track, I'm one of those too. I have a list. Who did I send a holiday card to last year? Who did I send a gift? Here's the 2025 column. You can also, again, do it in Outlook because you can keep their preferences. That's what the great notes columns are about. But I definitely think because one thing you don't want to do, so take an example that I said, if you don't want to give them a case for all their electronic devices two years in a row, that's a one-time gift.

So you have 20 left over so you can send them to 20 new clients, but you don't want to send them to the same people. So record keeping is key. Small or large firm, again, I'm going to say the most efficient people in most law firms are the admin. It does fall to them a lot. I think they can help you with that.

Elise Holtzman: Yeah, no, this is really good information. Actually I have the pleasure of for one of my programs, having some panelists join us, some rainmakers who are successful, who talk to the people in my program. So as you were saying that, I just realized I better write this year's gifts down because if I invite the same women back next year, I don't want to accidentally give them the same gift. So thank you for that advice.

So, Beth, as we wrap up our time here together, and I just realized I said wrap up, which I didn't intend to use a pun, but we're giving gifts. All right. I'm going with a pun. So as we wrap up our time here together today, I want to ask you a question that I ask all of my guests at the end of the show.

There's a phenomenon called the curse of knowledge, where experts sometimes forget that what is so obvious and natural to them is not at all obvious to others. When it comes to showing genuine client appreciation through holiday cards and gift giving, what's a principle or piece of advice that may seem really obvious to you, but you think is important for people to hear?

Beth Huffman: Well, first off, I'm hoping that everybody knows their client, but the other piece of advice I would give is ask. It shows interest. It shows the client you're interested in them, and I think it helps build the relationship. It really does.

I do want to say that anybody who wants to read the article, it was published by the Legal Intelligencer in the American Lawyer stable, but it is available on my website at postoncommunications.com. I have a follow-up article coming out on postoncommunications.com soon. It's a little similar topic because, as you said before, we have to give gifts all year round, or we might be doing a CLE for a client. We want to take a gift. Many of the mid to larger firms have or are thinking of building a firm store, a firm swag store. I have some tips in the next article on how to build a firm swag store, which also can be a great resource for your holiday giving.

Elise Holtzman: Yeah. So if you could just share what that is, because I forgot to ask you during the course of our program today, and you told me what it was. I had never heard of it, and I love the idea.

Beth Huffman: Many big firms, some medium-sized firms, and it can be a benefit depending on how much you spend throughout the year. There are several companies out there who will house all your giveaways. You don't have to have the giant closet in your law firm anymore where people walk in and take stuff anyway and you don't know the inventory and you swear you have two XLs and you don't.

These companies build you a website where you can go in and see how much inventory and I'm going to have a conference next month and I want 50 or 500 of X to give away at my conference and you can order them online, give them the hotel, have them ship there, ship them back for re-inventory and most of these companies are really good. Again, the inventory is right online, but you should have somebody dedicated in your firm to check inventory and say, "Hey, these are going really fast. We need to restock them."

You don't have to field the call from the office saying, "We're doing a heart walk. We're doing a river run. We need t-shirts." Everything is available on the firm store, which has the inventory, has the sizes. It saves incredible manpower for the larger marketing departments, the people who have people busy every day and they're not going to ship five things a day. Most of them can do overnight delivery if you pay for the fee and can take care of your conference needs too. So that's a firm store.

Elise Holtzman: Yeah. I think even for smaller firms, they may be able to find people who do this for them in a way that's efficient financially, because I go to a lot of conferences. I speak at a lot of conferences. I do like to give out my swag. Right now, it's all sitting in the front closet in my foyer. So I have to go.

Beth Huffman: You have to go mail it.

Elise Holtzman: I do. I have to check to see how many I have left and do I need to order more, and all of that sort of thing. So this is good stuff, Beth. So, to your point about the articles, I'm going to make sure that the information is posted in our show notes. So anybody who's looking for Beth's articles or is looking for Beth, you'll be able to find her and all of her great information by just going to the show notes on our website.

So Beth, thanks a million for being here. This is a really fun topic to talk about. It's super helpful, super valuable. Yeah. Whether it's a small firm or a large firm, I think there are great tips here for everybody. So thanks so much.

I want to thank our listeners as well for tuning in. If you've enjoyed today's show, please subscribe, rate, and review us at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. In the meantime, be bold, take action, and make things happen. Make sure you focus on gift giving because it's that time of year.